Reflections on a Career - 4

People - All Kinds

The greatest thing about my career, indeed the greatest thing about the life God has given me, is the people I’ve met and the people I’ve known. I have been blessed in that I’ve known dirt-poor people and exceptionally wealthy people; I’ve known folks functionally illiterate and folks at the top of universities; I’ve known janitors and I’ve known chairmen and CEOs leading international companies. I’ve also known folks from just about every race and from many ethnic groups, I’ve been in many of their homes, I’ve eaten with them or had a cup of coffee with them, laughed with them and prayed with them. I was blessed to live in an African - American neighborhood and I was blessed to live in three Latino neighborhoods; I am a better man for it.

When I hear people talking about other classes of people, or about races or ethnic groups, in less than flattering ways, I often ask if they know any of those folks, whether they’ve been in their homes, eaten with them, or had them in their homes. Chances are the answer is “no”. It is disturbing to me that even if the answer is “no” that the people doing the criticizing don’t see the foolishness of acting like they know something they don’t; they don’t see the prejudice and bias - and if they are professing Christians it pains me that they don’t see how uncharitable their speech and thinking are.

One of the neat things about my career in property management is that on the same day I can be meeting with executives and people of wealth in a boardroom at 10:00 AM, and then at 1:00 PM I may be talking to a laborer who dropped out of school when he was in the tenth grade discussing how to deal with a sewer backup. I’ve learned not to judge the inside of an apartment by the outside of the building, just because the landlord doesn’t care about cleanliness doesn’t mean the folks in the apartments don’t - I’ve been in many an inner-city apartment that was clean and inviting and in which the folks were kind and hospitable - thankful for what they had...as opposed to many of the attitudes I’ve experienced in “upscale communities”. Some of the upscale places I’ve managed have had some of the most ungrateful and mean people living in them; you can have a big bank account but a little mind and heart; or a little bank account (or maybe no bank account) and have a insightful mind and a welcoming heart.

Right now I have people working from me from I don’t know how many ethnic groups and backgrounds and even nations; I try to learn from them all and I truly enjoy them all. Sometimes I look into the faces of my African - American staff members who are my age and older and I think about what they’ve been through; the younger African - Americans often don’t get it, they don’t understand. Then I talk to my Latino team members, from various countries and areas of the US, and do you know what I want them to know above everything else? That I am on their side, that I want the best for them, that they can trust me, that I care about them.

I live on this social, economic, educational, racial, and ethnic continuum. I once commented to my physician that seminary didn’t teach me to live on the life and death continuum, as a pastor the people I cared for were getting sick, dying, and giving birth - all at the same time. My doctor said that med school didn’t teach him how to do that either. I live on the sickness, life and death continuum on my job too; both with my residents and with my team members - especially with my team members with whom I have continual contact. I may have more significant contact with people in business that I did as a pastor, I may have more significant time with people than I did as a pastor; I may have more opportunities to work with people in the nitty gritty dynamics of life than I did as a pastor, and to pray with them and counsel them. I guess these things are hard to discern but it is nice not to be encumbered by religious trappings and with people thinking that they are supposed to act a certain way because they are in religious setting.

But still it seems as if I never have enough time to be with people to help them, and this is similar to when I’ve pastored.

Yes, people have been the greatest gift. What richness God has placed in humanity, what treasures surround us. Of course we are fallen, of course we aren’t perfect, of course there are evil people and people doing evil things - don’t kid yourself, there are evil people. But in the midst of the insanity and evil there is much treasure, if only we will take the time to listen, to seek to understand, to get to know each other.